Friday, January 11, 2019
Thursday, January 10, 2019
French Prime Minister Proposes Government Registry of Demonstrators
Following the large turnout throughout France for the eighth week of “yellow vest” (Gilets jaunes) protests this past Saturday, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced on French television Monday night the imposition of an extraordinary law to suppress the demonstrations. Taking up measures initially put forward by the neo-fascists, he proposed that demonstrators be placed on government subversive lists and subjected to financial sanctions.
Philippe admitted that the “yellow vest” protests express social anger shared by workers throughout France, and indeed across Europe.
“From the beginning, in the statements of the ‘yellow vests’, there were demands for more purchasing power, speaking for French people who felt forgotten and ignored,” he declared.
But despite this admission, Philippe stressed that his government would not change its widely hated policy, but rather would seek to suppress the movement by putting in place additional obstacles to the right to demonstrate and strengthening the vast police apparatus for use against the population.
Read the entire article
Philippe admitted that the “yellow vest” protests express social anger shared by workers throughout France, and indeed across Europe.
“From the beginning, in the statements of the ‘yellow vests’, there were demands for more purchasing power, speaking for French people who felt forgotten and ignored,” he declared.
But despite this admission, Philippe stressed that his government would not change its widely hated policy, but rather would seek to suppress the movement by putting in place additional obstacles to the right to demonstrate and strengthening the vast police apparatus for use against the population.
Read the entire article
Wednesday, January 9, 2019
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Bolton’s Syria Conditions Are Designed to Prevent U.S. Withdrawal
Bolton continued his efforts to drag out withdrawal from Syria for as long as possible:
President Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, rolled back on Sunday Mr. Trump’s decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave American forces there for months or even years.
One of the reasons that I didn’t believe that U.S. withdrawal from Syria would really happen was the presence of Bolton and Pompeo on Trump’s national security team. As committed Iran hawks, they have strong incentives to delay and undermine any withdrawal plan, and Bolton is already doing that with his current trip abroad to “reassure” regional clients. It seems that they will pay lip service to the long-term goal of withdrawal, play along with the idea that U.S. forces will eventually leave, but then set so many conditions and create so many obstacles to withdrawal that it will never take place.
Read the entire article
President Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, rolled back on Sunday Mr. Trump’s decision to rapidly withdraw from Syria, laying out conditions for a pullout that could leave American forces there for months or even years.
One of the reasons that I didn’t believe that U.S. withdrawal from Syria would really happen was the presence of Bolton and Pompeo on Trump’s national security team. As committed Iran hawks, they have strong incentives to delay and undermine any withdrawal plan, and Bolton is already doing that with his current trip abroad to “reassure” regional clients. It seems that they will pay lip service to the long-term goal of withdrawal, play along with the idea that U.S. forces will eventually leave, but then set so many conditions and create so many obstacles to withdrawal that it will never take place.
Read the entire article
Monday, January 7, 2019
Thursday, January 3, 2019
Taiwan Will "Never Accept" Reunification With Beijing, President Says
Following a menacing speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping where he threatened violence against Taiwan should it pursue de jure independence from China and laid bare his intentions to push for a "one country, two systems" arrangement for what China considers to be a 'rogue province', pro-independence Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen clapped back at Xi in comments to the BBC on Wednesday, where she said the island would never accept reunification with China on Beijing's terms.
After defending the status quo and calling on Beijing to "face the reality" of Taiwan's continued independence, Tsai declared on Wednesday that the island, which has functioned like a de facto country since 1949, when defeated nationalists led by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai Shek fled across the Strait of Taiwan to seek refuge from the Communists, would never agree to the "one country, two systems" arrangement like the one that governs Hong Kong.
But on Wednesday, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen said the island would never accept reunification with China under the terms offered by Beijing.
"I want to reiterate that Taiwan will never accept 'one country, two systems'. The vast majority of Taiwanese public opinion also resolutely opposes 'one country, two systems', and this is also the 'Taiwan consensus'."
Under the "one country, two systems" formula, Taiwan would have the right to run its own affairs; a similar arrangement is used in Hong Kong.
Read the entire article
After defending the status quo and calling on Beijing to "face the reality" of Taiwan's continued independence, Tsai declared on Wednesday that the island, which has functioned like a de facto country since 1949, when defeated nationalists led by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai Shek fled across the Strait of Taiwan to seek refuge from the Communists, would never agree to the "one country, two systems" arrangement like the one that governs Hong Kong.
But on Wednesday, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen said the island would never accept reunification with China under the terms offered by Beijing.
"I want to reiterate that Taiwan will never accept 'one country, two systems'. The vast majority of Taiwanese public opinion also resolutely opposes 'one country, two systems', and this is also the 'Taiwan consensus'."
Under the "one country, two systems" formula, Taiwan would have the right to run its own affairs; a similar arrangement is used in Hong Kong.
Read the entire article
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Powerful U.S. forces work against pullout of troops from Syria
President Donald Trump’s announcement on Dec. 20 that his administration would quickly pull some 2,000 troops from Syria and 7,000 of the 14,000 in Afghanistan seemed to have caught many high-ranking U.S. as well and U.S. allies around the globe off guard.
It is unclear, however, to what extent the pullout will be able to be implemented. Trump is under a lot of pressure from even his supporters to back off or slow down the plan.
This often happens throughout history, when the core beliefs of a country promulgated by elites are challenged — and in the case of the U.S., it is both Republican and Democratic elites. The dismay at the retirement of Secretary of Defense James Mattis indicates the many battles ahead for a rebalancing of U.S. foreign policy.
The writer of this op-ed misses one very critical fact; the "winner" from this draw-down of US forces in Syria, is Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu, now fighting for his political life because he is on the keening edge of potentially being indicted for corruption by Israel's Attorney General.
Read the entire article
It is unclear, however, to what extent the pullout will be able to be implemented. Trump is under a lot of pressure from even his supporters to back off or slow down the plan.
This often happens throughout history, when the core beliefs of a country promulgated by elites are challenged — and in the case of the U.S., it is both Republican and Democratic elites. The dismay at the retirement of Secretary of Defense James Mattis indicates the many battles ahead for a rebalancing of U.S. foreign policy.
The writer of this op-ed misses one very critical fact; the "winner" from this draw-down of US forces in Syria, is Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu, now fighting for his political life because he is on the keening edge of potentially being indicted for corruption by Israel's Attorney General.
Read the entire article
Monday, December 31, 2018
Thursday, December 27, 2018
John Pilger Says Assange Denies Meeting Manafort
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange has vehemently denied that he ever met Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, according to journalist and filmmaker John Pilger, who met with Assange at Ecuador’s embassy in London last week.
Pilger said Assange told him the story published by The Guardian on Nov. 27 was a “total fabrication.” Pilger told Consortium News in an interview for the Unity4J vigil on Friday that “I personally can confirm that did not happen. He said it was a fabrication. It was not possible. The way internal security works at that embassy, it was not possible.”
Pilger called The Guardian story “an indication of a kind of degradation of the media today and especially of the ‘respectable’ media. We discussed that a great deal.”
Pilger said Assange had been the target of attacks “over the years” that have come “thick and fast.” He said: “And for one man to cope with them is an extraordinary feat. Only occasionally does he express anger—he does it as anyone of us would feel—say on an attack like The Guardian‘s utterly false story.”
Read the entire article
Pilger said Assange told him the story published by The Guardian on Nov. 27 was a “total fabrication.” Pilger told Consortium News in an interview for the Unity4J vigil on Friday that “I personally can confirm that did not happen. He said it was a fabrication. It was not possible. The way internal security works at that embassy, it was not possible.”
Pilger called The Guardian story “an indication of a kind of degradation of the media today and especially of the ‘respectable’ media. We discussed that a great deal.”
Pilger said Assange had been the target of attacks “over the years” that have come “thick and fast.” He said: “And for one man to cope with them is an extraordinary feat. Only occasionally does he express anger—he does it as anyone of us would feel—say on an attack like The Guardian‘s utterly false story.”
Read the entire article
Wednesday, December 26, 2018
Monday, December 24, 2018
Washington Melts Down Over Trump’s Syria Withdrawal
He’s a wily one, that Vladimir Putin. Consider all that he’s managed to accomplish over the last 24 hours, according to the geopolitical wizards on Twitter. At Putin’s behest, President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a withdrawal of American troops from Syria. That’s now cleared the path for Russia to exert control over Damascus, the Middle East, indeed the world itself, because Moscow has at last secured the jewel in its neo-Soviet empire…a strip of chaotic desert in northeastern Syria.
If that’s actually Putin’s thinking, then he’s not playing checkers or chess so much as 13 Dead End Drive right before the chandelier falls on his head. Yet that was the gist of the analysis from America’s smart set yesterday. Think tank functionaries and journalists and right-wing radio hosts were all united in furious opposition to Trump’s Russia-influenced absconding from Syria. Somehow they’ve yet to muster similar unanimous outrage over our massive national debt or our loneliness-cum-opioid crisis, but I’m sure that’s just a matter of time. Until then, the Syria page of Washington’s mad-lib book yields all the usual buzzwords: “adversaries,” “strength,” “surrender.”
So far as Putin goes, he isn’t trying to flip Syria behind some newly hung Iron Curtain. His aim is a return to the pre-civil war status quo: a friendly Assad regime, a safe Russian naval base in Tartus, and an end to jihadist-fueled instability across Syria. That latter one is especially important to understanding the Russian psyche. Putin fears nothing more than a weak state besieged by armed rogues, a result of his formative experiences in chaotic Dresden after the Berlin Wall came down and later amid uprisings in Chechnya. Hence the desire to protect Assad, who will keep the mob from the Tartus door. The real disruptive change, then, won’t come if Putin “wins”; it will come if the United States were to somehow realize its original delusion of overthrowing Assad, which would (further) tear open a power vacuum that would be filled at least in part by jihadists.
Read the entire article
If that’s actually Putin’s thinking, then he’s not playing checkers or chess so much as 13 Dead End Drive right before the chandelier falls on his head. Yet that was the gist of the analysis from America’s smart set yesterday. Think tank functionaries and journalists and right-wing radio hosts were all united in furious opposition to Trump’s Russia-influenced absconding from Syria. Somehow they’ve yet to muster similar unanimous outrage over our massive national debt or our loneliness-cum-opioid crisis, but I’m sure that’s just a matter of time. Until then, the Syria page of Washington’s mad-lib book yields all the usual buzzwords: “adversaries,” “strength,” “surrender.”
So far as Putin goes, he isn’t trying to flip Syria behind some newly hung Iron Curtain. His aim is a return to the pre-civil war status quo: a friendly Assad regime, a safe Russian naval base in Tartus, and an end to jihadist-fueled instability across Syria. That latter one is especially important to understanding the Russian psyche. Putin fears nothing more than a weak state besieged by armed rogues, a result of his formative experiences in chaotic Dresden after the Berlin Wall came down and later amid uprisings in Chechnya. Hence the desire to protect Assad, who will keep the mob from the Tartus door. The real disruptive change, then, won’t come if Putin “wins”; it will come if the United States were to somehow realize its original delusion of overthrowing Assad, which would (further) tear open a power vacuum that would be filled at least in part by jihadists.
Read the entire article
Friday, December 21, 2018
Thursday, December 20, 2018
The Constitutional Right to Boycott Israel
A report by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Palestine Legal discussed “The Palestine Exception to Speech: A Movement Under Attack in the US.”
It covers “widespread and growing suppression of Palestinian human rights advocacy in the United States” – notably on college campuses against students and teachers.
What’s going on has chilling implications for constitutionally guaranteed speech, media and academic freedoms, including an assault on “higher education to help develop critical thinking,” CCR and Palestine Legal explained.
Their report documents “event cancellations, baseless legal complaints, administrative disciplinary actions, firings, and false and inflammatory accusations of terrorism and antisemitism – that Israel advocacy organizations, universities, government actors, and other institutions have used against activists.”
It includes testimonies of supporters of Palestinian rights, targeted for their activism – in deference to Israel and its US lobby.
Read the entire article
It covers “widespread and growing suppression of Palestinian human rights advocacy in the United States” – notably on college campuses against students and teachers.
What’s going on has chilling implications for constitutionally guaranteed speech, media and academic freedoms, including an assault on “higher education to help develop critical thinking,” CCR and Palestine Legal explained.
Their report documents “event cancellations, baseless legal complaints, administrative disciplinary actions, firings, and false and inflammatory accusations of terrorism and antisemitism – that Israel advocacy organizations, universities, government actors, and other institutions have used against activists.”
It includes testimonies of supporters of Palestinian rights, targeted for their activism – in deference to Israel and its US lobby.
Read the entire article
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Financial Bounty Hunters Testify: Clinton Foundation Operated As Foreign Agent
The Clinton Foundation operated as a foreign agent ‘early in its life’ and ‘throughout it’s existence’ and did not operate as a 501c3 charitable foundation as required by its and is not entitled to its status as a nonprofit, alleged two highly qualified forensic investigators, accompanied by three other investigators, said in explosive testimony Thursday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
John Moynihan and Lawerence W. Doyle, both graduates of the Catholic Jesuit College of the Holy Cross and former expert forensic government investigators, gave their shocking testimony before congress based on a nearly two-year investigation into the foundation’s work both nationally and internationally. They were assisted by three other highly trained experts in taxation law and financial forensic investigations. The forensic investigators stressed that they obtained all the documentation on the foundation legally and through Freedom of Information Request Acts from the IRS and other agencies.
The investigation clearly demonstrates that the foundation was not a charitable organization per se, but in point of fact was a closely held family partnership.
Former Utah U.S. Attorney General John Huber, who resigned when he was appointed by former Department of Justice Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the issues surrounding the approval to sell 20 percent of U.S. Uranium assets to Russia, declined to attend the hearing. Chairman Mark Meadows, R-NC, who oversaw the hearing stated that it was disappointing that Huber declined, leaving Congress in the dark regarding the DOJ’s investigation.
Read the entire article
John Moynihan and Lawerence W. Doyle, both graduates of the Catholic Jesuit College of the Holy Cross and former expert forensic government investigators, gave their shocking testimony before congress based on a nearly two-year investigation into the foundation’s work both nationally and internationally. They were assisted by three other highly trained experts in taxation law and financial forensic investigations. The forensic investigators stressed that they obtained all the documentation on the foundation legally and through Freedom of Information Request Acts from the IRS and other agencies.
The investigation clearly demonstrates that the foundation was not a charitable organization per se, but in point of fact was a closely held family partnership.
Former Utah U.S. Attorney General John Huber, who resigned when he was appointed by former Department of Justice Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the Clinton Foundation and the issues surrounding the approval to sell 20 percent of U.S. Uranium assets to Russia, declined to attend the hearing. Chairman Mark Meadows, R-NC, who oversaw the hearing stated that it was disappointing that Huber declined, leaving Congress in the dark regarding the DOJ’s investigation.
Read the entire article
Monday, December 17, 2018
Friday, December 14, 2018
US Muslim Congresswomen Urged to Expose Zionist Agenda
Deploring Zionist control of US media, an American political analyst urged the first Muslim women elected to US Congress to make it a priority to expose the Zionist agenda to misinform people.
“I have said repeatedly in public that Israel was behind the 9-11 attacks, with an assist from their Wahhabic friends who also assist the Zionists now in destroying Syria and setting up a future war of aggression with Iran. This truth and the evidence to support it needs more exposure. This gets back to the Zionist control of American Mainstream Media, and now the attempts of this very element to destroy freedom of expression through Alternative Media by using the pro-Zionist Anti Defamation League of B'nai Brith (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as the filters for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and the like, in keeping information out of the hands of people globally that would otherwise inform them as to who the real enemy is, and what his agenda is. These Democratic Muslim Congresswomen need to focus energies on exposing this to the American public…,” Mark Dankof told IQNA in an interview.
Mark Dankof is a broadcaster for The Ugly Truth Podcast. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, the son of a United States Air Force Colonel, he graduated from Valparaiso University in 1977 and from Chicago's Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1983. In recent years, he has pursued post-graduate work in systematic theology and theological German at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Formerly the 36th District Chairman of the Republican Party in King County/Seattle and later an elected delegate to Texas State Republican Conventions in 1994 and 1996, he entered the United States Senate race in Delaware in 2000 as the nominated candidate of the Constitution Party against Democratic candidate Thomas Carper and Republican incumbent William Roth.
Read the entire article
“I have said repeatedly in public that Israel was behind the 9-11 attacks, with an assist from their Wahhabic friends who also assist the Zionists now in destroying Syria and setting up a future war of aggression with Iran. This truth and the evidence to support it needs more exposure. This gets back to the Zionist control of American Mainstream Media, and now the attempts of this very element to destroy freedom of expression through Alternative Media by using the pro-Zionist Anti Defamation League of B'nai Brith (ADL) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as the filters for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and the like, in keeping information out of the hands of people globally that would otherwise inform them as to who the real enemy is, and what his agenda is. These Democratic Muslim Congresswomen need to focus energies on exposing this to the American public…,” Mark Dankof told IQNA in an interview.
Mark Dankof is a broadcaster for The Ugly Truth Podcast. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, the son of a United States Air Force Colonel, he graduated from Valparaiso University in 1977 and from Chicago's Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1983. In recent years, he has pursued post-graduate work in systematic theology and theological German at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Formerly the 36th District Chairman of the Republican Party in King County/Seattle and later an elected delegate to Texas State Republican Conventions in 1994 and 1996, he entered the United States Senate race in Delaware in 2000 as the nominated candidate of the Constitution Party against Democratic candidate Thomas Carper and Republican incumbent William Roth.
Read the entire article
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
The Movement to Suppress and Impoverish Critics of Israel is Racist
Marc Lamont Hill, Tim Anderson, Steven Salaita, Rabab Abdulhadi, Hatem Bazian, Ahlam Muhtasib, Norman Finkelstein and other academics have all been targets of the movement to silence their criticisms of Israel and their defense of Palestinians. This includes threats and legal actions to try to deny them employment, in violation of their free speech rights, one of the most hallowed and ancient principles of academia. Salaita and Finkelstein were, in fact, denied employment, to the great detriment of their entire career. Hill and Anderson are currently defending themselves from this threat.
It is central to our understanding of these threats that the accusers are invariably Zionist or pro-Zionist individuals and institutions. Their backers include the Israeli government, which co-ordinates the movement through its Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the Israel lobbies in the US, UK, France, Australia and other countries, and the major Jewish Zionist billionaire funders, such as Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, Bernard Marcus and others. They emphatically do not include non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews, but almost always include non-Jewish Zionists.
This is already enough to conclude that there is a fundamental difference between Jews and Zionists and that many are one without being the other, including some ultra-orthodox Jews, like the Neturei Karta. The relevance of this is that the accusations against the critics of Israel are always that they are racist anti-Jews; i.e., “anti-Semitic”. The evidence consists of testimony from Jewish students and Jewish organizations that the criticisms make them feel “unsafe” or that they find them offensive.
Read the entire article
It is central to our understanding of these threats that the accusers are invariably Zionist or pro-Zionist individuals and institutions. Their backers include the Israeli government, which co-ordinates the movement through its Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the Israel lobbies in the US, UK, France, Australia and other countries, and the major Jewish Zionist billionaire funders, such as Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, Bernard Marcus and others. They emphatically do not include non-Zionist or anti-Zionist Jews, but almost always include non-Jewish Zionists.
This is already enough to conclude that there is a fundamental difference between Jews and Zionists and that many are one without being the other, including some ultra-orthodox Jews, like the Neturei Karta. The relevance of this is that the accusations against the critics of Israel are always that they are racist anti-Jews; i.e., “anti-Semitic”. The evidence consists of testimony from Jewish students and Jewish organizations that the criticisms make them feel “unsafe” or that they find them offensive.
Read the entire article
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Monday, December 10, 2018
France’s Yellow Vests: Fuel Tax Hike Triggers Poverty, Finances War and Repayment of the Public Debt
The Western media in chorus upholds France’s President Macron against the Yellow Vests Movement, which it describes as “Climate Deniers”.
The New York Times casually describes the fuel tax hike as a carefully formulated economic policy to fight global climate change.
It’s a lie.
Hikes in the fuel tax applied Worldwide in more than 120 countries are part of a package of deadly macro-economic reforms which serve to impoverish large sectors of the World population.
The hike in gasoline prices translates into increases in the price of food, transportation and essential goods and services. It undermines the productive structure. It leads to the collapse of the standard of living.
Read the entire article
The New York Times casually describes the fuel tax hike as a carefully formulated economic policy to fight global climate change.
It’s a lie.
Hikes in the fuel tax applied Worldwide in more than 120 countries are part of a package of deadly macro-economic reforms which serve to impoverish large sectors of the World population.
The hike in gasoline prices translates into increases in the price of food, transportation and essential goods and services. It undermines the productive structure. It leads to the collapse of the standard of living.
Read the entire article
Friday, December 7, 2018
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